Philosophy Conference

I spent most of the day Friday at an international conference on
environmental ethics organized by our philosophy department.
They had people from all over the world giving presentations. There
was a wide range of people, from Al Gore disciples to people who
actually work on environmental restoration projects.

Some of the presentations were professors reading pure philosophy
papers, with dense jargon and big words. The surprising and amusing
thing was that I was able to follow these, and that some were quite
good. High-quality philosophy is a lot like computer programming or a
math proof: you start with definitions and then use them in a logical
sequence to achieve a result.

Others were more of a business presentation, showing what people had
done and how to do things more effectiely. One was about the Savannah
River, and one was about Dutch river management system. Of course,
they used PowerPoint. However, some of the other presentations were,
in my mind, pointless and juvenile, the kind of thing you might expect
in a high school public speaking class.

I was there for two reasons. First, it was interesting and I wanted
to learn stuff. Second, I was there to attempt economic damage
control. Many people, especially environmentalists, think that they
have a right to do economics without a license, and some of their
ideas were alarming indeed. I have learned how to talk to
philosophers, so I did my best to add some sense in the question
periods and discussions.

Sometimes, I was not necessary. When one guy started talking about
extending China's one-child policy to India, the women in the crowd
ripped him to pieces (Not literally, although that would have improved
the world*.)

At dinner, I had a long talk with a small group of people. I
explained the basic assumptions behind economic analysis**, and did my
best to dispel misconceptions***. I think it went pretty well. Here
are some paraphrased conversation moments:

Philosopher: "So, what area are you focusing on? I assume that you
might specialize in, for example, analysis of Adam Smith."
Me: "No, economists don't focus our studies by authors, like
philosophers do. Our categories are based on categories of real-world
appliciation, like Industrial Organization or Public Policy."

Philosopher: "So why would you even want to be an economist? You
never seem to generate new ideas or think about what a perfect world
should be like. All you do is look at what people do and analyze it."
Me: "An economist has the knowledge to help you put your ideas into
practice without screwing up the world. We know about unintended
consequences, like with rent control..."

Rent control is always a good talking point. People know that it was
put in place with good intentions, and they usually know how bad it is
in practice. It is easy to make the connection between that and
environmental policies.

*This is not just me being snarky or sadistic. I am simply applying
his philosophy to his own existence.

**Economists are agnostic about what people want or how they should
think. We simply take preferences as given, and show how to let
everyone achieve their desires in the most efficient manner. I fully
support the philosophers' desire to make people less materialistic so
that they value community and environment over random junk, but
changing desires is outside the scope of my field.

***Lots of people think that corporations are powerful, evil things.
I explained that, unlike governments, corporations have zero power
over you. The only way they can get money is if you decide to give
them money. All corporations are simply appendages of popular will,
the result of people voting with their wallets.

PS:
You can tell that I have spent too must time around philosophers.
This blog entry has entirely too many parenthetical comments and
footnotes :-)

Medicine Ball

Last night at martial arts practice, I and some of the other upper
rank students were playing around with a nine pound medicine ball. We
were tossing it around casually, like we would a basketball; I was
catching and throwing it with only one hand.

One of the new white belts wanted to join in. He was a big, beefy
guy, so we thought it would be no problem. I tossed the ball to him.

He caught it with two hands, but it still slammed into his chest. He
grunted and staggered back several steps.

At that point, I realized just how much technique and training I was
using. I was in a balanced, rooted stance that allowed my legs to
help absorb the momentum of the ball. I would reach out to the ball
as it came to me and then control its motion with gentle, steady
force, guiding it to a stop. The white belt could have easily beaten
me in arm wrestling, or any other feat of strength, but he did not
know how to deal with the momentum of the medicine ball coming at him.

He learned quickly, though. I showed him the basics, and eventually
he was able to handle it pretty well. He still seemed to be a little
afraid of the thing. If I threw it directly at him, he would insist
on using both hands. But when I threw it off to the side, he was able
to catch it one-handed, almost without realizing it.

Airsoft

I just finished running around in the woods shooting at people.
Airsoft is a sport that uses replicas of military firearms to shoot
starch BB's. The airsoft club was holding a demonstration to
introduce the sport to new members. There were not many new people
there; I was the only one who had never played before, and there were
several new students who had played elsewhere.

The club has inherited an old wildlife research station in the forest
near the university, and they use that for their games. It was a good mix of
terrain, very similar to the woods that I am accustomed to romping
through. We ran about eight games. I didn't embarrass myself, but
the old-timers had better guns, better camoflage, more experience, and
more knowledge of the terrain, so I usually didn't last too long.

At the ranges we were playing at, I barely felt the BB's through
clothing, and when one hit my cheek it was only a slight sting. I
learned that I am fairly cool under fire. I did not get excited or
jumpy at any time during the game, and I did not lose fire discipline.
I usually stayed with the single-shot semi-auto mode, unless my
target was running around quickly.

I was warned that my back will ache tomorrow morning, but I doubt it.
I have a fairly strong back, thanks to martial arts exercises.

It was fun, and I learned a lot, but I do not know if it will fit my schedule.

Grad Student Social

Student Government organized a grad student social yesterday. I
decided to go to go and be social. It was in a bar downtown that they
had reserved. I had to show my graduate student ID to get in, as well
as my driver's license. The place felt like some kind of ratty old
garage or basement. It had bare floors, and bare walls with exposed
steel beams. Random pool tables and arcade games were scattered
around the place.

It was incredibly loud. There were no carpets or cloth of any kind to
absorb sound, so all of the background conversation was magnified and
distorted. This, of course, just forced people to talk louder. And
it got worse and worse as the night went on. More people started
showing up, and then they started playing music. The music itself was
not loud or obnoxious, but it was just enough extra sound to make
people want to talk louder, so it magnified the noise even more.

It was almost impossible to communicate. If you were not within a
foot of the talker, you could not understand them unless you could
read lips, or were really good at reading body language. I suspect
that this effect is an intentional feature of the environment, that
they want people to either get really close to each other or to
communicate on a primal level.

I met a few people I knew, and a few people I didn't. But because of
the communication difficulty, I really didn't get to know anybody. I
tried to be social, but I ended up just leaving early. I was getting
nothing out of it, and risking damage to my hearing.

So now I have attended a party in a bar. It was like touring the
Paris sewer system: interesting and educational, but I have no desire
to do it again.

Philosophy and Freedom

I just got back from the year's first Philosophy Club meeting. Our
normal meeting place, a cozy coffee shop, was closed because a tornado
knocked out its electricity. So we went to a pizza place instead. It
was louder, and did not have the furniture to pull into a circle, so
we talked about random things in smaller groups.

On one end of the table was me, an undergraduate philosophy major, a
blue-haired Syrian atheist, and a Sikh astrophysics Ph.D. who got off
the plane from India two weeks ago. We had an excellent conversation.

Most of it was driven by the undergraduate asking naive questions like
'What is the drinking age in India?' (Answer: Whenever you are old
enough to get the money to buy it) We got lots of interesting
accounts of life in developing countries, involving stealing
electricity, bribing police, running your own phone lines across
several city blocks, bribing tax collectors, throwing wild parties for
less than ten dollars, bribing police, etc.

It seemed, through most of the conversation, that the theme was that
you could get away with almost anything if you had cash and savvy.
But when the undergraduate asked what people in India thought about
America. The Sikh was quick to respond, "In America you have so much
freedom. You can do anything, say anything, and wear anything you
want." The Syrian added, "Here, people might look at you funny, but
that's all. Nobody yells at you or hassles you."

It was a good illustration of how the rule of law preserves the
freedoms that really matter.

Quote - Consciousness

Consciousness is the ability to escape genetic and social determinism.

Starting Year 2

I took the comprehensive exams yesterday. The Micro exam was from 9
to 12, and the Macro exam was from 2 to 5. The Micro exam was about
as hard as I expected it to be. I was able to finish most of it, and
I am fairly confident that I did well. The Macro exam, however, was a
joke. I finished it in two hours, spent 30 minutes fine-tuning a few
answers, and then spent the remainder of the time bored. Lots of
other people also finished early. The department does not really care about
macroeconomics, everybody knows that the Macro exam is mostly a
formality and the real challenge is Micro. If you do well on the
Micro exam, you will pass both of them, and if you do badly on Micro,
your Macro score will do nothing to help you.

The teacher recommended that we take the weekend off. Yeah Right.
Before next Tuesday, I need to read five methodology papers and write
an essay on them, teach myself how to deal with Markov Chains, and
prepare for the class I am teaching. In the near future, I also have
to study several chapters of the Econometrics book, come up with a
paper topic for another class, and grade a pile of problem sets from
the first-year graduate micro class. So here I am, working in my
office on Saturday morning.

But I would rather be doing this than working in my old job. It is
usually fun, and I don't get bored.